We uncover strong evidence that newly public firms run by financial expert CEOs have a lower probability of involuntary delisting and a longer survival time in the aftermarket. This result is robust to alternative definitions of long-term viability and endogeneity concerns. We attribute this...

IPO firms with high-powered CEO incentive contracts have lower failure rates in the aftermarket. Economically, an interquartile change in the distribution of CEO pay translates in a reduction of the failure risk probability by approximately 21%. The Pay Gap between the CEO and its subordinate...

Using the pay gap between a firm’s CEO and the highest-paid CEO among similar competing firms to conceptualize the prize of winning external promotion tournaments, we document a positive relationship between external tournament incentives (ETIs) and IPO underpricing – a proxy of the cost of...

This study examines the association between financial expert CEOs and earnings management (EM) around initial public offerings. We identify financial expert CEOs as those having past experience in either banking or investment firms, large auditing firms, or finance-related roles. We find strong...

This study examines the influence of specialist CEOs on the probability of failure and survivability of initial public offering (IPO) firms. We construct a generalist skills index based on CEOs' past employment history in order to classify CEOs into specialist and generalist ones. Specialist...

We find that Initial Public Offering (IPO) firms led by CEOs with superior educational credentials — in terms of level and quality — are associated with lower levels of IPO underpricing. This association is mainly driven by CEOs that hold advanced degrees. Notably, a difference-in-difference...

We study whether the financial experience of chief executive officers (CEOs) is associated with earnings management around initial public offerings (IPOs). Examining the sample of U.S. initial public offerings (IPOs) from 2003 to 2011, we find that newly listed firms with financial expert CEOs...